双语·邦斯舅舅 二十七、从忧郁变为黄疸病

XXVII

In every quarter of Paris there is a doctor whose name and address are only known to the working classes, to the little tradespeople and the porters, and in consequence he is called "the doctor of the quarter." He undertakes confinement cases, he lets blood, he is in the medical profession pretty much what the "general servant" of the advertising column is in the scale of domestic service. He must perforce be kind to the poor, and tolerably expert by reason of much practice, and he is generally popular. Dr. Poulain, called in by Mme. Cibot, gave an inattentive ear to the old musician's complainings. Pons groaned out that his skin itched; he had scratched himself all night long, till he could scarcely feel. The look of his eyes, with the yellow circles about them, corroborated the symptoms.

Had you some violent shock a couple of days ago? the doctor asked the patient.

Yes, alas!

You have the same complaint that this gentleman was threatened with, said Dr. Poulain, looking at Schmucke as he spoke; "it is an attack of jaundice, but you will soon get over it," he added, as he wrote a prescription.

But in spite of that comfortable phrase, the doctor's eyes had told another tale as he looked professionally at the patient; and the death-sentence, though hidden under stereotyped compassion, can always be read by those who wish to know the truth. Mme. Cibot gave a spy's glance at the doctor, and read his thought; his bedside manner did not deceive her; she followed him out of the room.

Do you think he will get over it? asked Mme. Cibot, at the stairhead.

My dear Mme. Cibot, your lodger is a dead man; not because of the bile in the system, but because his vitality is low. Still, with great care,your patient may pull through. Somebody ought to take him away for a change—

How is he to go? asked Mme. Cibot. "He has nothing to live upon but his salary; his friend has just a little money from some great ladies, very charitable ladies, in return for his services, it seems. They are two children. I have looked after them for nine years."

I spend my life watching people die, not of their disease, but of another bad and incurable complaint—the want of money, said the doctor. "How often it happens that so far from taking a fee, I am obliged to leave a five-franc piece on the mantel-shelf when I go—"

Poor, dear M. Poulain! cried Mme. Cibot. "Ah, if you hadn't only the hundred thousand livres a year, what some stingy folks has in the quarter (regular devils from hell they are), you would be like Providence on earth."

Dr. Poulain had made the little practice, by which he made a bare subsistence, chiefly by winning the esteem of the porters' lodges in his district. So he raised his eyes to heaven and thanked Mme. Cibot with a solemn face worthy of Tartuffe.

Then you think that with careful nursing our dear patient will get better, my dear M. Poulain?

Yes, if this shock has not been too much for him.

Poor man! Who can have vexed him? There isn't nobody like him on earth except his friend M. Schmucke. I will find out what is the matter, and I will undertake to give them that upset my gentleman a hauling over the coals—

Look here, my dear Mme. Cibot, said the doctor as they stood in the gateway, "one of the principal symptoms of his complaint is great irritability; and as it is hardly to be supposed that he can afford a nurse, the task of nursing him will fall to you. So—"

Are you talking of Mouchieu Ponsh? asked the marine store-dealer. He was sitting smoking on the curb-post in the gateway, and now he rose to join in the conversation.

Yes, Daddy Remonencq.

All right, said Remonencq, "ash to moneysh, he ish better off than Mouchieu Monishtrol and the big men in the curioshity line. I know enough in the art line to tell you thish—the dear man has treasursh!"

Look here, I thought you were laughing at me the other day when my gentlemen were out and I showed you the old rubbish upstairs, said Mme. Cibot.

In Paris, where walls have ears, where doors have tongues, and window bars have eyes, there are few things more dangerous than the practice of standing to chat in a gateway. Partings are like postscripts to a letter—indiscreet utterances that do as much mischief to the speaker as to those who overhear them. A single instance will be sufficient as a parallel to an event in this history.